A video streaming company called Rainway says that it partnered with Microsoft to bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to iOS and the web.

“It was our efforts in the browser that put us on Microsoft’s radar,” Rainway co-founder and CEO Andrew Sampson claims. “You see, a Microsoft engineer used Rainway Gaming for a last-minute demo of Azure’s infrastructure in Africa. Our consumer product delivered 1080P @ 60 FPS gameplay to Chrome with no issues over the Azure backbone.”

That experience, he says, led to Microsoft seeking help bringing Xbox Cloud Gaming—previously codenamed Project xCloud—to iOS, where Apple’s anticompetitive business practices prevent Microsoft from creating a native client for the service.

“We cut the proverbial Gordian knot with the Rainway SDK,” Sampson says. “Our solution not only brings Xbox Cloud Gaming to Safari on macOS, iPad OS, and iOS devices, it also brings it to modern web browsers on Windows, Chrome OS, and even Linux. No extensions, no plugins, and most importantly no downloads.”

The Rainway SDK handles “all the complex cross-platform media presentation, input, and browser interoperability so that Microsoft’s engineers can focus on building a fantastic product user experience,” he continues. “In contrast, Rainway’s team of engineers handles the logistics of making sure streams are smooth, and as some have described making gameplay ‘indistinguishable from being native’.”

We’ll know soon enough: Microsoft revealed today that it will be releasing beta versions of its Xbox Cloud Gaming client for Windows and iOS tomorrow, and those clients are web-based.

Tagged with Xbox Cloud Gaming